Dogs bark, kids point and drivers slow down when they pass by Justin Crandall’s house in North Dallas. Sometimes, they even stop to take a picture.

The front lawn has become a neighborhood attraction ever since Crandall, a Dallas entrepreneur, installed a robotic lawnmower. It whirs around his yard each day, cutting blades of grass and then returning to its docking station. When Crandall steps outside each morning, the lawn is freshly cut.

Crandall and his business partner, Bart Lomont, see the futuristic-looking landscaping robot as a key part of their company’s future. They co-founded Robin, a lawn care startup that initially sought to streamline the tedious task of finding someone to cut the grass. Now, they're rolling out robotic lawnmowers for homeowners willing to pay a higher price for that fresh-cut look.

The robotic lawnmowers look similar to a Roomba, but run on a wire that's snakedin the grass and either under or through the cracks of sidewalks and driveway. The mower follows the wire around the lawn and can find its way back to the docking station to recharge its battery.

So far, the company has installed 36 robotic lawnmowers, which run on their own and use electric power rather than gas. Along the way, they have had to overcome a few obstacles. Among them: fences, sidewalks and sticky fingers.

Robin takes care of about 6,000 lawns in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, Miami, Tampa and Atlanta, Crandall said. It's grown to a staff of 12 people and recently moved into its own office in the Farmers Market neighborhood of Dallas.

Regular lawn care costs an average of $33, but depends on the size of the yard, Crandall said.

As Robin expanded to more Dallas neighborhoods and to other cities, Crandall searched for a landscaping idea that could capture people's imaginations. He read a news story about Roomba maker iRobot's plans to design a robotic mower. When he and Lomont began to research, however, they learned the robots had already caught on in Europe.

"We started off thinking we could be the first and pioneer this," Crandall said. "We realized these things already exist -- we just have to bring them to the U.S."

The robots helped Robin win the business of Shaun and Kristie Arnold of Frisco. Shaun Arnold, a self-described techie, said he was intrigued after hearing about the mowers from a friend. The robotic mowing service costs the same amount as his former landscaping crew.

He said the robotic mower is nearly silent and less disruptive than the landscaping crew, which sometimes showed up on afternoons when he relaxed by the pool.

He said the mower attracts an audience of kids and adults who visit a playground next-door. "People just stop what they’re doing when they’re walking by and watch it for awhile," he said. "Everyone is in awe of it."

Robotic mowers are popular in Western Europe, especially in Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Italy. Sales of robotic mowers in Western Europe surged by 183 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to report by market research firm Euromonitor International. Companies including American tractor-maker John Deere, Japanese automaker Honda and German home appliance maker Bosch have come out with their own version of robotic mowers -- with some models only available in Europe.

By 2020, the report predicted that sales of robotic mowers in Western Europe will rise to $505 million.

But in the U.S., the robots haven't caught on. Sales of robotic mowers in Western Europe were $360 million in 2015, according to the Euromonitor report. In North America, they were $3 million.

In the U.S., gas is cheaper. Landscaping crews are plentiful. Installation can be a headache. All of those factors can make a $1,000 or $2,000 landscaping gadget a tough sell, said Giselle Sendra, manager of digital marketing in the U.S. for Israeli company Robomow.

Sendra said robotic mowing companies are still educating American customers and answering questions. She said Robomow's U.S. sales are equal to less than five percent of European sales. She said Robomow will soon debut a $599 mower that may appeal to more budget-conscious customers.

Crandall said some of Americans' hesitancy may be out of habit. People are used to their lawn care routine, whether they mow themselves or hire a crew to take care of it. "Inertia is our biggest competitor," he said.

Robin co-founder and CEO Justin Crandall works with a few of the company's Roomba-like lawnmowers.

(Smiley N. Poole/Staff Photographer)

Crandall and Lomont came up with a new business model to try to lower the barriers to entry: They install and lease the robotic mowers to customers and provide other tasks, such as edging and landscaping design, with their crews. To test out the idea, they installed robotic mowers and planted rye grass that would grow through the winter in their yards and at willing customers' homes.

Robin buys the mowers from manufacturers like Positec, Husqvarna and Robomow, who customize them for Robin.

Lawn care by a robotic mower starts at $99 per month and goes up to $199 per month for a package that includes mowing, twice-a-month edging, weeding and shrub trimming. Customers pay $99 or $199 for installation, depending on whether they sign up for one season or a month-to-month plan.

Robin buys mowers and leases them to customers.

(Smiley N. Poole/The Dallas Morning News)

During the pilots, half of the 12 mowers got stolen, Crandall said. They recovered three of the mowers, thanks to the help of Dallas police, and they've added a GPS tracker and a bright yellow sticker, warning potential thieves that they'll face prosecution. Mowers do not work when taken off site.

Robin also had to come up with a way around another common U.S. obstacle. They filed a patent for a small, inexpensive door that allows a robotic mower to pass through a fence to the front or backyard, without letting the dog out.

Ben Klopfenstein cuts grass, puts down mulch and helps with quality control as a Robin employee. He's done lawn care since age 10, when he helped his father and grandfather take care of their yards in Arkansas. Now, he helps install robotic mowers.

He says he's passed on the basic task of cutting the lawn to the automated mower, just like his father passed it down to his young sons. The robots free up more time for meticulous tasks, like shaping shrubs and maintaining flower beds, he said.

He said the new mowers have caught the eye of competitors, who may wonder about the industry's future. "I've literally been installing robots and seen another landscaping crew stop and look at Robin with a terrified look," he said.